50 GIUFFRIDA-RUGGERI & CHAKLADAR 



holds that they came in prehistoric times perhaps by the 

 sea-route. 



Our opinion, while for leucodermic India it is in 

 favour of the Haddon-Chanda hypothesis, would, for 

 melanochroid India, he in favour of another solution : 

 this is the problem of the black brachycephals. 



We think that the solution of such a question, is to 

 be sought in the prehistoric ethnic stratification which 

 can be reconstructed for the regions to the west of 

 Hindustan. There are many indices of a primitive strati- 

 fication with equatorial characters, characters which, 

 while they are quite different from those of the white and 

 the yellow races, comprehend in their morphology also 

 those of the Negritos. Lately, ITi'isin^ has admitted that 

 in fact a coastal race of Negritos does appear as the most 

 ancient population between India and the Persian Gulf. 1 

 Later, according to the same scholar, the interior of Iran 

 might have had a Dravidian population, remnants of 

 which are still to be found there, j ust as woolly-haired 

 Negritos were preserved in Susiana up to historic times. 2 

 Now, the Dravidians, travelling from Iran into India, 

 would have brought with them more brachycephalic 

 elements, as we may suppose that these Negritos were, 

 who anyhow are not wanting even in the Indian Penin- 

 sula. A band of Negritos is spread along the southern 

 regions of Asia, and probably also Arabia the terminal 

 portion of anterior Asia, and comparable with regard to 

 its geographical position with the Deccan, the terminal 

 portion of the sub-Himalayan region owes to the 

 Negritos the elevation of the cephalic index among the 

 inhabitants of the south. 



1 HiisiNG (G.). loc. cit., p. 2-i2. 



2 They are those referred to as Negroids in the work of DIEULAFOY, La necropole 

 de 



